A Ir-4(CO)(7)(+) primary ion beam, at energies from 2.5 keV to 10 keV, was used to profile boron-delta layers in Si to investigate the influences of atomic mixing and surface roughness on the degradation of depth resolution. Factorial analyses using the mixing-roughness-information (MRI) model indicated that the influence of the mixing increased as beam energy was reduced below 5 keV in the case of oxygen flooding. It was confirmed that the magnitude of the MRI surface roughness was different from that of the AFM surface roughness. The discrepancy in the magnitude of roughness was examined by considering the difference in sputtering depth as well as the definition of the MRI surface roughness. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.